venerdì 11 novembre 2011

Gregor Josef Werner, Music Director of the Prince of Esterhazy, is one of those musicians not yet well enough known to judge whether he has been justifiably forgotten or not. But to judge from the music recorded here, published in Augsbourg in 1748, he is a composer of solid technique and a fine imagination. On the other hand, history has not forgotten that his successor was Joseph Haydn. His "Musical Instrument Calendar" is situated between the Four Seasons by Vivaldi and Haydn's The Seasons. Werner has set to music the months of the year. His Almanach Musical is an agreeable work comprising around 60 pieces both evocative and entertaining. Each month is represented by a suite of five movements in the same key. In each group, there is always a minuet, which represents the annual rotation of the sun. The composer takes the opportunity to show the power of his imagination and his technical prowess. The listener will note particularly the joy of the month of June, the expressive silences of October and the pathos of November.

giovedì 10 novembre 2011

This is a particularly welcome and important world-premiere recording. Handel composed Esther in about 1718‑20 for James Brydges, the Earl of Carnarvon (and later Duke of Chandos), using a libretto that was anonymously adapted from Thomas Brereton’s English translation of a play by Racine. This slender work, containing only six scenes, lays a strong claim to being the first English oratorio, but Handel seems not to have considered performing it for a public audience until 1732, when the entrepreneurial composer thoroughly revised the score to fit his company of Italian opera singers (including Senesino, Strada and Montagnana, who all sang in English), and enlisted the aid of the writer Samuel Humphreys to expand the drama with additional scenes (which made the oratorio long enough to fill a theatre evening, advantageously fleshed out some of the characters a little bit, and also enhanced the musical attractiveness of the oratorio). This is the historic version of Esther that launched Handel’s oratorio career in London, but it has remained inexplicably neglected in modern times.David Vickers, Gramophone [1/2008]

martedì 8 novembre 2011

The Piae Cantiones (1582) is Finland’s one and only collection of early music and reflection of Europe’s medieval musical heritage. Zefiro Torna performs these beautiful carols, devote and student songs with 15th-16th century instruments and includes a children’s choir. The discrete but charming use of a kantele introduces a Finnish-ing touch to the sound.

The majority of the compositions belongs to the Germanic-Bohemian cantio tradition. There are also links to French, Spanish and Italian sources and to Flemish masters such as Jacob Obrecht. The religious songs — the majority being Christmas songs — are grouped together according to the liturgical year. The remaining songs deal with the transitory character of earthly life, the human condition, the life of schoolchildren, Biblical subjects and the rebirth of Nature in the spring.

Very few collections of music from the 16th century are so strongly anchored in contemporary musical life as the Piae Cantiones are in Finland today, becoming a fixed part of Finnish choral and religious music with the flowering of Finnish nationalism and romanticism in the early 20th century. Variants of these cantiones can be found in Finland’s religious folk music, whilst many composers have also made arrangements of the songs, including Jean Sibelius in his ‘Carminalia’.

“These 24 of the 74 songs from Piae Cantiones form not only a wonderful programme, permitting a variety of styles ranging from pure medieval to rustic and folksy but are also delightful performances….There are delicious and always aptly chosen instrumental contributions, including local colour from the Finnish kantele, and the children sing disarmingly with an ardent, earthly grace, like angelic urchins….”

domenica 6 novembre 2011

With 17 CDs in 15 volumes, The Music of Islam boxed set artistically presents nearly 20 hours of diversely rich Islamic music recorded throughout the Islamic Belt with over 800 pages of synoptic scholastic text written by leading scholars and ethnomusicologists from around the world. Creating a class of its own, and perhaps setting a new standard, The Music of Islam is an unequalled sound document destined to live beyond our time and, regrettably, most likely surpass the very existence of some of the people and cultures featured.

The artists

The Music of Islam is the result of a vision going back over a decade to Michelle Zackheim's visual art project The Tent of Meeting (see Harmonic Meetings 14013) which inspired Eckart Rahn to record 200 musicians in 9 countries on 3 continents over 10 years; the finished project can surely be regarded as recorded music history.New Zealander David Parsons, an accomplished musician and acclaimed producer and Prof. Margaret Kartomi of Australia, the leading expert of Indonesia's music cultures, have captured the very essence of each area; the people, culture and music.The musicians and reciters recorded in the series are masters of their chosen art, regionally and worldwide, with numerous years of intense study (or a lifetime devotion to studying) from a long lineage of great composers, reciters, mystics and spiritual leaders. Each is truly a divine gift, not only to their respective cultural history, but to the world at large.While all volumes feature commonly played Arabic instruments, some volumes include instruments specific to their musical heritage.

contents:

Volume One: Al-Qahirah, Classical Music of CairoVolume Two: Music of the South Sinai BedouinsVolume Three: Music of the NubiansVolume Four: Music of the Arabian PeninsulaVolume Five: 'Aissaoua Sufi Ceremony (2CD)Volume Six: Al-Maghrib, Gnawa MusicVolume Seven: Al-Andalus, Andalusian MusicVolume Eight: Folkloric Music of TunisiaVolume Nine: Mawlawiyah Music of the Whirling DervishesVolume Ten: Qur'an RecitationVolume Eleven: Music of YemenVolume Twelve: Music of IranVolume Thirteen: Music of PakistanVolume Fourteen: Mystic Music Through the AgesVolume Fifteen: Muslim Music of Indonesia, West Sumatra and Aceh (2CD)